barrel. did you broaden that you stood for nothing. did you leave out a majority of the country. it may take the republicans four years to answer. one thing you can never be wrong, if you lose, you can't brag. everybody gets in everything you did and nobody is going to admit he is wrong or she is wrong. joy read and jonathan alter, both msnbc political analysts. joy, you first and then john jump in here. it seems like if you look at next time, 2016, there are two directions in the party. people like rubio who is telling you about the seven-days of creation. on the other end of the world, you have chris christie talking about how many days it is going to clean up this mess from sandy. one is living in the secular, real world. one is off in the theological,

idealogical, ethereal worth the right likes to get into. joy, you are shaking your head. they haven't decided to go sky-high into ideology or to try to become a more modern party. that's still the same question. >> i think you picked the right person to focus on, marco rubio. there are three rings of the republican party, the evangelical right, the business wing and then the joe the plumber wing, which is, we call the tea party. they all sort of rushed into the void that was created by the economic recession with the business wing deciding they wanted one of their own to be president, mitt romney. with the evangelicals deciding to legislate on morals, on contraception and with the tea party saying we are going to impose small government austerity on the rest of the country. all three collapsed in this election in 2012. they have to decide which is strong enough to survive. my personal theory is that the business wing was always the

strongest and will be the surviving wing and you can hear that in this talk about loosening up on immigration. they want looser immigration rules. they are the with unthat is going to try to assert themselves. that's cross purposes with the tea party wing that is dead set against immigration. >> don't trust the good will of the business community. by the way, the lay unions ought to be jump out there organizing everybody comes in legal or not. the business community doesn't want real immigration. they don't want work permits. they want to get them in here as fast as they can and as cheap as they can. let me go to john with history. you and i remember about 1988, the democrats had won a race. this is a race. the key thing is not that you lose or that you lose by a lot. they didn't lose by a huge amount. it is when you lose when you think you are going to win, when you rethink your party. just like dukakis. everybody thought, the duke has got it. he is up by 17. in august, he loses by eight. he could have lost by more. this time, they thought they

would win. they kept thinking. they lose by about six. here is the question. are they going to do that kind of thing the democrats did, which is to widen the party, go to the dlc root and go for the middle, go for business and not further right. which way are they headed right now? >> to do a little history here quickly. the actual rethinking started after the 1984 loss to ronald reagan by walter mondale. you had the emergence that year of gary hart in what they call the new democrats. so that idea that we've got to broaden our appeal, get away from some of these kind of paleo liberal ideas that have been dominating the party for a long time helped the democrats. it took eight years before they came back into power in 1992. that rethinking period was

enormously important. the republicans have not yet gun that process. they need to come to terms with the fact that they just aren't appealing to enough people. they also have what one writer called a culture of contempt in their party. they disrespect voters and other people. they need a friendlier, more uplifting, more inclusive message and if they don't get it, they won't get power back. >> the comment i made was that george w. bush spoke as if it was a foreign language. what's worst, to be condescending or ignorant. they were falling into those two camps, hard right or change with the times. >> i think he did honorably well, came pretty close. he is a northeastern liberal. that's not where we are going.

i'm optimistic because there was a very strong republican bench that did not enter the fray with all the soul-searching about what ideology we are going to pursue is going to come from them. i think it will be a fairly reaganite, conservative one. >> the republican party is a mad man party in a modern family america. it doesn't fit anymore. >> by the way, charles crowd, as you and i know, used to be a speech writer for the aforementioned walter mondale. >> they must have some fish to fry. what's charles pushing? he is a neocon. his priority will be to make sure they have this very show

show venice stick party. they need to appeal to hispanics and to figure out how to integrate all these different wings of the party in a way that expands beyond aging white men. their party has become a regional white old party. it doesn't cut it if anymore in america. that's what this election showed. >> can you, joy, see around the country. they did become pretty much a white party. that has to do with the fact we have an african-american president. there is going to be tremendous loyalty to him. the first person also benefits tremendously from group loyalties. here is the question, if we had had a white liberal running instead of an african-american

liberal. would there have been more of an opportunity for the republicans to run an african-american and change things around that way? are they flexible enough to reach out to the classic minority who are african-americans who have been around longer than the white people. >> i think the problem is forgetting their tone which is very offputting. their core philosophy is not popular with the minority groups. a lot of the messaging and tone. you can't just try to find an african-american or latino candidate that will mouth the same words. happy holidays. the best of campaign 2012. think of this is a football highlight show after the big

game. corporations are people. 47%. the first debate. we'll go over all the hits and the misses with our all-star cast. this is going to be fun. ♪ [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] introducing zzzquil sleep-aid. [ snoring ] [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] it's not for colds, it's not for pain, it's just for sleep. [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] because sleep is a beautiful thing. [ birds chirping ] introducing zzzquil, the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil. ♪ bikes and balloons, and noodles on spoons. a kite, a breeze, a dunk of grilled cheese. catches and throws,

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welcome back to hardball. it is the hardball 2012 post-game show. mitt romney succinctly summed up the gop primary season in an infamous call to donors. we had 20 republicans debates. that was absolutely nuts. the august 2011 debate showed there entrancecy generals on the issue of raising taxes. watch grover nord quist's people go to work. >> i am going to ask a question to everyone here on the stage. say you had a deal, a real

spending cuts deal, 10-1 as byron said, spend willing cuts to tax increases. speaker, you are already shaking your head. who on this stage would walk away from that deal. could you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes that you would walk away on the 10-1 deal? >> joining me to review that list of greatness, another highlights and low lights. michael steele, and greg howard, both msnbc contributors. let me ask you this. is that a good day or a bad day for the republicans? >> i think it was a bad day. i thought it was very interesting that later on that

huntsman said that he should have taken the 10-1 deal. he could have carved out a new deal on the stage. >> it wouldn't have looked very good after the election. >> i'm just saying that that moment sort of solidified the rest of the story for this party. >> you don't want to be the one that voted against it or vote for it when it fails. >> i agree with the chairman it was the beginning and end for john huntsman. it was also in the long-term the beginning of the end for mitt romney. >> how so? >> it is today's politics. >> they used to say, you have to be the most segregationist guy in the south. somebody would always go to your right. >> i guess you could say that whatever an early primary season

crowd claps for furiously is going to kill you in ohio. >> i get thrilled seeing how great politics is. let's get back to the iowa caucuses, another unique state. mitt romney and the superpac that were supporting him were in a mission to an nile late all competition with the ads to bomb the hell out of the city. newt gingrich was the biggest threat. here is a romney supporting ad destroying newt. >> you know what makes barack obama happy, newt gingrich's baggage? he has more baggage than the airlines. freddie mac helped cause the xlik collapse. gingrich paid in. they paid him $36,000 an hour, $1.6 million. he teamed up with nancy pelosi on global warning and together they co-sponsored a bill

supporting china's brutal one-child policy. >> there has been a lot of discussion in my head about whether ads work in general elections. no ad is going to change their mind. >> in primaries, they are deadly, particularly in republican primaries. that ad in particular for newt gingrich was devastating. >> didn't you see the loving looks. >> real quick on that. i would have pivot off of that caption of him and nancy together. that's what the people are looking for, that partnership, working, getting things done. they were talking about global warning. >> the other thing about that ad, it was symbolic of the

entire mitt romney campaign strategy in the primaries, which was a sort of take no prisoners, attack the other guy strategy. it wasn't about philosophy. he did nothing to show that mitt romney was a committed conservative. it just showed that mitt romney had tons of money and some very clever consultants that could carve up anybody in his path. that left him with a lot of making up to do once he secured the nomination. the way he got the nomination as tip phied by that ad showed weakness. >> somebody is is going to be the republican nominee and that person is going to beat obama and all you have to do is be that nominee. >> that was his theory. breaking up is hard to do. once mitt romney secured the nomination in the early spring, having everybody fall in line, it just wasn't there. >> throughout the republican

primary, mitt romney pushed himself so far to the right, especially on immigration that course correction was nearly impossible. i don't think he even tried one. here is the immigration exchange that became a defining line on the hard right for romney. let's listen. >> let's stay on immigration. governor romney, there is one thing i'm confused about. you say you don't want to round up people and deport them. you say they would have to go back to their home countries and apply for citizenship. if you don't deport them, how do you get them home? >> the answer is self-deportation. we are not going to round people up. >> what's wrong with that, howard? >> first of all, the phrase self-deportation. >> was inest itablely a

headline. >> the firing part? >> that these people are just sort of numbers on the spreadsheet. the cold heartedness and the coldbloodedness played into everybody's view of romney. >> it is just not realistic. the snickering you heard even among republicans in the hall. grandpa is going to wake up and say, you kids stay. i'm getting out have o here. >> we will be back to talk about the big moments of the election. the right ring's most outrageous conspiracy theories are coming up next. this is "hardball," a place for politics. not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib: atrial fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem, a condition that puts him at greater risk for a stroke. [ gps ] turn left. i don't think so. [ male announcer ] for years, bob took warfarin,

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back to "hardball." the final weeks of president obama's term were upon us. it is hard to remember all the bizarre conspiracy theories. president obama's 2010 trip to india. u.s. congresswoman, michele bachmann and others on the right, were up in arms over rumors about what the trip would cost. >> i think we know that just within a day or so, the president of the united states will be taking a trip over to india that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. we have never seen a trip at this level before of this level of excess. i think it is not a good signal to send to the american people when the american people are quite, frankly, struggling with high job losses. >> for comparison, $200 million a day would have surpassed the

daily cost of the war in afghanistan at the time. that nonfactual story from michele bachmann about the cost of obama's trip was started been an unnamed source on an indian news website and somehow got into the ether there. we can't talk about conspiracy theories without bringing up rush limbaugh. remember the first day of the republican convention was canceled due to hurricane isaac. rush then floated the idea that president obama was somehow involved with the weather reports showing that tampa might get hit. >> you've got a hurricane coming. the national hurricane center, a government agency, very hopeful that the hurricane gets near tampa. the national hurricane center is obama. it's a national weather service, part of the commerce department. it's obama. obviously, obama is sending fema in advance of the hurricane hitting tampa so that the republican convention is nothing but a bunch of tents, in tampa, a bunch of rvs and stuff.

make it look like a disaster area before the hurricane even hits there. >> was he laughing at his own b.s. there? did you ever think rush limbaugh would warn us of a skewed weather report. next, an extreme case of preelection fear among gerring. what caused a republican judge in texas to float the idea of a tax increase in his state? it was about the need to beef up the military personnel in case civil war breaks out because president obama got reelected. do you believe it? here is judge head on that one. >> i am thinking worst case scenario, civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, not just a few riots here and demonstrations. we are talking lexington, concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy. he is going to send in u.n. troops. i don't want them in lubbock county. so i'm going to stand in front of the armored personnel carriers and say, you are not coming in here.

the sheriff, i have already asked him, are you going to back me? he said, yeah, i'll back you. >> that was his idea of a worst case scenario. finally birtherism with a twist. here is steve king with how president obama's mother managed to convince us all that her son was born in hawaii, not in kenya. >> i looked into that before he was sworn in for the presidency. we went down into the library of congress and we found the micro fish there, only two in hawaii. each had published the birth of barack obama. it would have been hard to fraudulently file the birth notice of barack obama being born in hawaii. there doesn't mean there aren't other ways they could have announced that by telegram from kenya. >> maybe she neglected to consider that naming her son

barack obama might be a problem for her son's future run for the united states. have a great holiday weekend! in. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. great taste. mmm... [ male announcer ] sounds good. it's amazing what soup can do. with his wife, danielle, almost every weekend. derrell hasn't been able to visit his mom back east in a long time. [ shirley ] things are sometimes a little tight around the house. i wasn't able to go to the wedding. [ emily jo ] since derrell couldn't get home, we decided to bring home to him and then just gave him a little bit of help finding his way. ♪ [ laughs ] [ applause ] i love you. i love you, too.